A sad start to 2014

It is sad that, only two days into the new year, The Prince's Trust is reporting that more than three quarters of a million young people in Britain think that they have nothing to live for due to unemployment and almost a third of young people who are long-term unemployed have contemplated suicide. This is a problem which is just not going away and will only be made worse if competition for available jobs becomes greater due to an increase in immigration from Eastern Europe. What is really sad is that employers would rather advertise for workers in Romania and Bulgaria than employ our own youngsters. It's not the employers' fault - we live in a competitive, capitalism society and they want the cheapest and best workers. It's not the fault of the immigrants - they are just trying to better their lives and they are entitled to come here due to decisions made by successive UK governments. In Calton's opinion, the root of the problem goes back to when we started talking about rights without talking about responsibilities, when discipline became a dirty word in schools, when we started inculcating a sense of entitlement into our children without teaching them that there is no such thing as a free lunch. The result is a generation who are unemployable. The Prince's Trust manages to pick up the pieces for some but what is really needed is prevention and that means a change in attitude. Perhaps if the Bank of England stopped printing money, children would learn that it does not grow on trees.